


This brief tragedy of flesh

by bhaer



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Friends with benefits through the years, M/M, Mutually depressing sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 23:30:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bhaer/pseuds/bhaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combeferre and Grantaire weren't always lovers. They weren't always even friends. But as the years go by and Paris edges closer to revolution, they are thrown into intimacy strong enough to doom them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This brief tragedy of flesh

**Author's Note:**

> _Of all the Souls that stand create –_  
>  I have elected – One –  
> When Sense from Spirit – files away –  
> And Subterfuge – is done –  
> When that which is – and that which was –  
> Apart – intrinsic – stand –  
> And this brief Drama in the flesh –  
> Is shifted – like a Sand –  
> When Figures show their royal Front –  
> And Mists – are carved away,  
> Behold the Atom – I preferred –  
> To all the lists of Clay! _  
> — Emily Dickinson_

**May, 1826**

Dusk began to descend over Paris and Combeferre was glad for it. He had begun to associate daylight with the dull ache of his back as he crouched over a textbook and the dizzying smell of decay. He dreaded the morning dawn, his signal to wake up and begin another day, a day with diagrams to memorize and suffering he could only silently witness. He had believed, emboldened by success at his _lycée_ and a wave of adolescent idealism, that medical school, if perhaps not easy, would at the least be fulfilling. Instead he found himself washing dried blood off his hands every evening and wondering miserably if he was being given the power to hurt or heal. He saw little comfort in the austere operating theatres of the Hôtel-Dieu.

Dinner was bread and cheese with a well-worn copy of _The Social Contract_ borrowed from Enjolras. Enjolras, his only friend worth having. Classes brought new acquaintances, practicals gave him study partners, but none of his fellows had yet endeared themselves as thoroughly as Alexandre Enjolras had.

Reflecting on Enjolras brought a brief smile to Combeferre’s face. When he had emerged from the dissection room for the first time, sawdust and gore stuck to his shirt sleeves and unable to shake the smell of disease from his nose, it had been Enjolras who made him a pot of tea and reminded him gently that the cadavers were past their suffering. His new classmates coped with lewd jokes and, occasionally, by leaving Paris altogether, having realized medicine was beyond their understanding. Combeferre was determined to do neither. He thanked Enjolras for the tea and when the time came to redon his navy robes, did so with steely resolve and a flask of brandy in his pocket.

It did grow easier with time. No longer did he stumble out of the hospital, biting his tongue to keep from vomiting in the street. He had almost stopped crying at night. His professors remarked on his skill with favor. He was supposed to be adjusting and yet, he still found himself thinking sadly of home, where death was clean and quiet and tragedy a line in the newspaper.

He had finished his bread and was reminiscing over Christmases past when the door to his meager apartment was flung open and Enjolras and his sometimes-friend Courfeyrac ran in, panting. Courfeyrac gasped for air against the wall, clutching his chest while Enjolras wiped his brow on his sleeve and choked out a greeting.

“We... need your help,” Enjolras spluttered. Combeferre tried not to openly smile at the distraction and gently closed his book.

“Would it be entirely rude if we were to deposit a potentially dangerously wounded man in your room and ask you sew him up as best you can?” Courfeyrac said, regaining some control and brushing his auburn curls back into place.

Combeferre blinked rapidly. “What?”

“We have just witnessed the most spectacularly brutal display of cruelty from several gendarmes, resulting in an innocent student nearly bleeding to death. Our good friend M. Bahorel is bringing him presently.” Enjolras’ eyes had taken on that peculiar glassiness they sometimes did when he was in a fury.

Combeferre had begun to feel something like panic bubble up in his chest.

“I’m a first year medical student. I hardly think I’m the right person to—”

“ _I_ hardly think we can take this man to the hospital!” Courfeyrac interjected a little coldly.

“I’ve never performed surgery,” Combeferre responded simply. Courfeyrac gave him a curious look but Enjolras’ enraged face softened a little.

“You know how, in theory?” Enjolras gripped his arm and for the first time Combeferre saw the specks of blood dotting his sleeves.

“I suppose...”

“Then alleviate his suffering as best you can.” Enjolras’ warm touch inspired trust but nothing could quell the sickly fear now devouring Combeferre whole. He had the uncomfortable feeling Courfeyrac knew he was afraid.

He would never be a surgeon.

“I’ll need bandages,” He said uncertainly. “Enjolras, there should be some spare shirts in my dresser that will do.” Enjolras, calm as ever, walked briskly across the room.

Courfeyrac held up a shirt sadly. “Shall I rip them?”

“Two and a quarter inches in width, as long as possible,” Combeferre said, perhaps a little snappishly. Courfeyrac shrugged and did as he was told.

Perhaps Combeferre should have taken that moment to prepare himself but instead found himself thinking that this Monsieur Courfeyrac, clown of the law school and new bosom friend of Enjolras, was the most infuriating person he had ever met.

And then the moment was over and the door was flung open again. Combeferre could smell the familiar aroma of blood before he saw his patient, a hairy husk of a man being carried by a ruby-red waistcoat. In a moment of panic he attributed the color to the patient’s steady bleeding until reason gently reminded him that the scarlet hue was a dye.

His wonderfully warm and comfortable bed was immediately ruined as the wounded man was placed gently on the white sheets. Combeferre stepped forward tentatively.

“I’m not dead yet,” the man rasped and even Courfeyrac jumped. Enjolras’ steadiness had given way to an unusual pallor and he gripped his newly made bandages with white knuckles.

“Of course you aren’t,” Combeferre replied, his voice shaking.

“You don’t sound terribly sure of that, so let me elucidate for you. Though fucking uncomfortable, I am alive. Hades calls to me, a pomegranate in one hand and sleep in the other. I would like to sleep, though not the kind he offers.”

“When I have assessed the damage I can supply you with opium,” Combeferre offered.

The man laughed dryly and then grimaced. “Here is the damage: I have been shot.”

“He’s in shock,” Enjolras whispered.

“I most certainly am not.”

Combeferre saw Enjolras waver a little and recognized the gray hue to his skin: he was about to faint.

“Alex,” he said with forced kindness, “Please fetch me some cool, clean water.” Enjolras nodded and almost ran out of the room.

The man groaned loudly as the door slammed shut.

“And therein leaves my protector, my guardian angel standing over me with a flaming sword to fight off the specter of death. Did you call him Alex? I am disappointed; I should have thought him a Michael.”

Combeferre leaned over the bed and pulled the shreds of a bloody waistcoat away to reveal a violet oozing from the man’s stomach. Bile rose in his throat.

“And do you have a name?”

“M. Grantaire, that you may carve it on my tombstone. And you! I see your face now! Are you a doctor or a child given a scalpel? Your Alex may have conquered the world twice over by thirteen but you cannot be more than twelve, hardly enough time to master—” M. Grantaire winced as Combeferre nudged the hole with his finger.

“I am twenty,” Combeferre said stiffly. He was hyper-aware that Bahorel and Courfeyrac were watching him with barely hidden curiosity.

“A child. I am surprised you are allowed to live apart from your mother so soon after—”

Another gasp. This one hid the edges of a scream.

A basin of water was set down near the bed and Combeferre was vaguely aware of Enjolras’ presence behind him.

“I-I think it might be beneficial to sedate you now,” Combeferre said. Grantaire fixed him with dark, beady eyes.

“Do not let me perish, child, or I shall haunt you as surely as the Erinyes shall follow Orestes to Athens.”

A sudden confidence tickled the back of Combeferre’s throat. “You will not die. The bleeding is venous and the bullet has not punctured any vital organs. A bad shot for the gendarme, but a good one for you.” He suddenly felt as if he were on rounds with a favorite professor, reciting a memorized diagnosis certain to awe his classmates and charm the doctors. It was a pleasant feeling, and his happiness at it scared him.

Grantaire looked shocked, but it may have simply been the pain.

Courfeyrac administered the opium with surprisingly gentleness and clapped Combeferre on the back afterwards. Once Grantaire was silent and the blood washed away, it was easy to pretend this was nothing more than a mannequin he was displaying form on. When, in the absence of forceps, Combeferre was obliged to pull the bullet out with his fingers, Enjolras had to be carried out of the room by a smirking Bahorel.

Only once, holding the threaded needle in shaking hands, did Combeferre falter. Grantaire had moaned in his sleep at the exact moment Combeferre had been about to pierce the skin and something about the childishness of the action was altogether frightening.

“I can’t believe he called you young. He’s no more than five and twenty himself,” Courfeyrac mused. He extended a gentle gloved hand to wipe the thin layer of sweat off Grantaire’s forehead.

“How did he get himself shot in the first place? Who is he?” Combeferre asked.

Courfeyrac shrugged. “You know, he’s the sort of person who’s always being shot at by someone. Perhaps too fond of the drink, if you ask me, but a decent sort of fellow. An artist, though I don’t know if a good one. Always does me a good turn.”

Grantaire made a whimpering noise.

“You’ve done better for him than most people he’s encountered, I think.” Courfeyrac smiled. Combeferre tried to smile back.

When the hole was sewn up and the bandages applied and Grantaire continued to sleep fitfully, Enjolras returned, a thin trail of bile on his chin and bright eyes dulled. They watched Grantaire rest as if the force of their collective gaze could save him and when daylight broke and Combeferre was obliged to leave for morning rounds, in spite of his tiredness, he did so with a quicker step.


End file.
